SHARMILA BOSE
Ph : 9811915670
Email. : bosesharmila@rediffmail.com
20th September, 2012
The Prime Minister of India
New Delhi
Kind Attn. : Dr. Manmohan Singh
Subject : The Great Thorium Robbery
Dear Sir,
The following is the abstract from a write-up floating in the internet; I thought I should bring this to your notice.
The great thorium robbery
India has limited uranium reserves but is rich in thorium. Thorium is the future fuel cycle to produce long-term nuclear energy with low radio-toxicity waste. Thorium cycles are feasible in all existing thermal and fast reactors without major modifications in the engineering systems, reactor control and the reactivity devices. “Former President Abdul Kalam has been stressing the importance of India pursuing the thorium fuels route for its nuclear power plants instead of going with a begging bowl to the USA…”
Over the years Indian scientists at BARC have developed a fast breeder reactor using thorium as fuel and it has been functioning at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam, 60 km from Chennai, for the last 27 years. “Based on the experience gained, work began on a 500 MW fast breeder reactor at Kalpakkam which should have been commissioned in 2010 Kalpakkam, but the UPA government is more interested in importing highly risky uranium based nuclear reactors from foreign countries and going slow on the indigenous technology.”
Scientists know that the long term sustainability of the indigenous nuclear power program in India depends to a great extent on large-scale utilization of its vast thorium resources for breeding uranium and recycling the same in self-sustaining closed fuel cycle in thermal breeder reactors. What the scientists have achieved the Sonia-Manmohan government has stalled to favour Americans.
But the story doesn’t end here. As with everything connected with the Sonia-Manmohan regime there is a scam to go with it— a scam that makes Coalgate seem like a pittance. Ever since the UPA government assumed office in 2004, 2.1 million tones of monazite, containing 195,300 metric tons of recoverable thorium, has disappeared from India. This export was almost certainly illegal. Mr. Rajappa observes: “If the Comptroller and Auditor-General were to audit the accounts of the IREL and the Department of Atomic Energy, custodians of fissile minerals, the Coalgate scam would look like small change. The missing thorium, conservatively estimated at $100 a ton, works out to about Rs 48 lakh crore, putting all other UPA scams in the shade.” This beggars even the Coalgate scam.
So under the Sonia-Manmohan regime we have scam following scam, each exceeding the one before. How could monazite sands (thorium ore) be exported when Atomic Energy Commission’s approval is needed for the export of any strategic mineral? By a sleight of hand, the Department of Atomic Energy, directly under Manmohan Singh, “delisted heavy minerals like monazite and ilmenite from the prescribed substances list vide SO 61 (E) dated 20 January, 2006, to facilitate their export by private companies.” So the safeguard was gone and another scam to dwarf all that went before was born.
India has the largest mineral sands resources in the world. These are also among the least exploited resources having a high potential to meet the country’s nuclear energy needs. First the Germans, then the French and now Americans have cast their covetous eyes on this invaluable resource. Their export was banned soon after independence. The beach mining sector was opened to private entrepreneurs in 1998 but the export of beach sands registered a quantum jump after 2005, immediately after UPA came into power. Then, even radioactive minerals like thorium sand were allowed to be taken out of the country unchecked.
Source : N.S. Rajaram, No more Mr. Clean II : The Coalgate Conspiracy, September 8, 2012, http://folks.co.in/blog/2012/09/08/no-more-mr-clean-ii-the-coalgate-conspiracy/
What surprised me that the huge resources vanished from Indian soil and our Security could not keep a check. It is the responsibility of Indian Defense to protect the Border and State Resources, but they failed a huge quantum of resources that cost the State Treasure drastically. This needs a strong evaluation how the State resource was robbed and the Naval Security failed to bring this to your notice.
I have the information that the said Thorium was given to US and France and the payment has been made to the unknown account number. If this piece of information is found authentic and true then why we cannot bring the lost money into the State Treasure.
With best regards,
Yours faithfully,
(SHARMILA BOSE)
